<i>Paul Perschmann, aka Playboy Buddy Rose, was found dead today by his wife at his home in Portland, OR. No cause of death is known at this time, though he told people that he had been having blood sugar issues with his diabetes of late. Buddy worked for both WWF and AWA and was one of the great stars of Don Owen's Portland Wrestling. He helped groom a lot of wrestlers both in the ring (including Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty in an early tag feud with partner Doug Somers) and later at his wrestling school, which he operated until recently with "Colonel DeBeers" Ed Wiskoski. Both Buddy and Ed were honored by the Cauliflower Alley Club in 2004. He holds the honor of being in the first-ever WrestleMania match on March 31st, 1985, as the masked Executioner, losing to Tito Santana. More info on his life and career is available at his website, which is located here.</i>

God, I loved Playboy Buddy Rose as a kid. And I never knew he was the Executioner in that match until Smasher's post.

One of the great skits I remember circa 1982: Rose's gut hanging over his trunks as he brags about his superior fitness. He then falls to the ground and does three one-handed pushups, puffing like a dying man. Of course, he then gets up and yells, "I could've done 100!"

Great stuff.

And his legendary Portland matches/interviews/turns are all over YouTube.

I started following pro wrestling in the mid-1980s during the Hulk Hogan boom, and around that time ESPN started showing the AWA programs. I became a total mark for the Midnight Rockers, Michaels and Jannetty, and if you followed them you knew all about Rose and Somers, and their manager Sherri Martel. The Rockers chased them for the better part of the year and finally won the tag belts from them.
Michaels later said in his book that Rose knew how popular the Rockers were and because of that he used his influence to stretch that program out as far as possible. Could you imagine anybody feuding for a year over the tag team belts?

Trivia questions: Who did Rose and Somers beat to win the AWA tag title (a couple of well-known names) and what was unusual about the title change.

"Entering the ring at a svelte 210 pounds...." Meanwhile, the superimposed graphic on screen would say "210??"

He was derisively called Doughboy by the announcer. And the Wrestlemania thing is a great piece of trivia. Now I know who Colonel DeBeers is; Wiskoski was a jobber when I was growing up in St. Louis. DeBeers was one of the oddest attempts at a foreign bad guy ever. In some venues, I'd imagine, he'd have had a decent amount of sympathizers.

I started following pro wrestling in the mid-1980s during the Hulk Hogan boom, and around that time ESPN started showing the AWA programs. I became a total mark for the Midnight Rockers, Michaels and Jannetty, and if you followed them you knew all about Rose and Somers, and their manager Sherri Martel. The Rockers chased them for the better part of the year and finally won the tag belts from them.
Michaels later said in his book that Rose knew how popular the Rockers were and because of that he used his influence to stretch that program out as far as possible. Could you imagine anybody feuding for a year over the tag team belts?

Trivia questions: Who did Rose and Somers beat to win the AWA tag title (a couple of well-known names) and what was unusual about the title change.

Click to expand...

Curt Hennig and Scott Hall.

I think the unusual thing was that it was the first time Rose and Somers teamed up.

RIP Playboy. The Blowaway Diet skits were great.

Interesting thing, Rose actually once got a heavyweight title shot against Backlund at MSG around 1981-82. You wouldn't have thought that seeing him years later jobbing out on Superstars.

I started following pro wrestling in the mid-1980s during the Hulk Hogan boom, and around that time ESPN started showing the AWA programs. I became a total mark for the Midnight Rockers, Michaels and Jannetty, and if you followed them you knew all about Rose and Somers, and their manager Sherri Martel. The Rockers chased them for the better part of the year and finally won the tag belts from them.
Michaels later said in his book that Rose knew how popular the Rockers were and because of that he used his influence to stretch that program out as far as possible. Could you imagine anybody feuding for a year over the tag team belts?

Trivia questions: Who did Rose and Somers beat to win the AWA tag title (a couple of well-known names) and what was unusual about the title change.

Click to expand...

Curt Hennig and Scott Hall.

I think the unusual thing was that it was the first time Rose and Somers teamed up.

RIP Playboy. The Blowaway Diet skits were great.

Interesting thing, Rose actually once got a heavyweight title shot against Backlund at MSG around 1981-82. You wouldn't have thought that seeing him years later jobbing out on Superstars.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that first answer was probably easy for old-school types. The second part was that the title apparently changed hands on a countout. I still don't know how that happened and I never saw the actual match, but from subsequent comments on the AWA show and the Apter mags, there was a technicality in the AWA that if a champion went too far away from the ring on a countout, he (or they) lost the title.

About Rose's announced weight: In those AWA days, they would announce him as 271 pounds and he would immediately go to the ring announcer and insist over the mike that he was 217. He did this during one of the many matches against the Rockers, and Jannetty immediately grabbed the mike and said, "there's no way that's your weight; I know for a fact that you're wife weighs that much." Rose's response: With laughter in the crowd and a hurt look on his face, he walks over to the TV announcer's table and exclaims "but I'm not married."